


Dangerous Liaisons

by fembuck



Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: War of the Damned
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, Femslash, Film Noir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 04:39:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1115609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fembuck/pseuds/fembuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Intelligent, ruthless, fearless and cunning, Saxa Jaeger has all of the attributes necessary to claw her way to the top of Chicago’s criminal underworld. It’s tough being a woman in a man’s world however, especially one who wants to become queen, and Saxa’s battle for control becomes even tougher when her hitman, Donar, goes missing during a job. It takes time and a considerable amount of money, but eventually Saxa is able to set up a meeting with the darling of the professional killing world, 'Bella Donna' (a.k.a  Belesa Volkov).  Will the deadly Russian beauty end up being Saxa's savior or her destruction?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dangerous Liaisons

Saxa sighed impatiently as she leaned against the metal outer wall of the warehouse and lifted her hand to check her watch for the second time in as many minutes.  There had been an unexpected rainfall an hour before that had left the air cold and damp, but she hadn’t realized that when dressing for the evening.  As a result, she was chilled to the bone and overly cranky because of it. 

An aggressive roaring sound began to vibrate towards her from the entrance to the shipping yard, and Saxa rolled her eyes, even though she was relieved to hear the sound.  Arriving at a secret meeting in a car loud enough to wake the dead was ludicrously ostentatious, but Saxa was less annoyed by the behavior than she would have been on another night because she was freezing and Bella Donna had at least arrived mercifully early.

Still unable to see the car but clearly able to hear it, Saxa began to walk out of the shadows.  She measured her steps carefully, walking at a steady, easy pace into the light and towards Bella Donna’s car, which came to a stop just as Saxa reached the laneway. 

Devil red lips curved up in a wicked smile as Saxa laid eyes on the professional killing world’s newest darling, Belesa Volkov, a.k.a. Bella Donna, for the first time.  “Well,” she drawled, smile still in place as she openly appraised Belesa with her eyes.  “You’re certainly the prettiest hitman I’ve ever seen.”

“Why, Ms. Jaeger,” Belesa replied demurely.  “You’re going to make me blush,” she murmured, dipping her head down coquettishly for a moment before she looked up to meet Saxa’s eyes head on and smiled, the width and whiteness of it giving the playful expression a slightly ferocious edge. 

“I very much doubt there’s anything on this planet that could make you blush, Ms. Volkov,” Saxa returned, her lips twitching slightly in genuine amusement as she grinned at the Russian beauty parked in front of her.

“I don’t know about that.  From what I’ve heard, you’re an extremely creative woman,” Belesa murmured, looking up at Saxa through her eyelashes.  “I’m sure if you applied yourself, you could think of something to … warm my blood,” she breathed softly, biting down on her bottom lip gently as her gaze dropped from Saxa’s face down to her chest.

“Truth falls from your lips like a fine wine,” Saxa breathed out, “And if I’m to be held to the same standard, I must admit that I’ve a few ideas already.”

Belesa held Saxa’s gaze for a moment after the blonde finished speaking, and then she breathed in sharply, nostrils flaring momentarily, before she smiled up at Saxa and released a light, playful laugh that was quiet at odds with the stone-cold killer Saxa knew lay beneath the wholesome sound.

“Why don’t you join me?” Belesa asked when her laughter gently faded away. 

She looked at the empty seat next to her, and then patted it for good measure as she turned back to face Saxa. 

“I’m going get a crick in my neck staring up at you like this.”

“Why should I care?” Saxa asked, enunciating with brutal precision as she leaned over and braced her arms on the door of Belesa’s convertible.

“Because I have those shoes so I know you’re not all that comfortable either.”

Saxa’s brows furrowed slightly and she blinked a few times in rapid succession, momentarily thrown by the unexpectedness of Belesa’s response. 

“Come on in,” Belesa said, her voice jarring Saxa again, just when she was starting to get her wits about her once more.  “I’ll put up the top and crank the heat.  You look like you could use a little warming up,” she continued, dropping her eyes pointedly to Saxa’s arms which were dotted with goose bumps.

Saxa considered putting up a fight for appearances sake, but Belesa seemed like an intelligent woman and she knew for a fact that being uselessly pig-headed would not win her the respect of an intelligent woman.  She was cold and Belesa’s suggestion was a good one, and Saxa knew that it would be better for her to show good judgement going into their negotiation instead of fanning her feathers like peacock, hoping to impress Belesa with an array of distracting colours.

“You’re too kind,” Saxa breathed out, smiling at Belesa innocuously before she began to walk around the car to the passenger side door.

Belesa had busied herself pushing buttons and twisting dials by the time Saxa made it to the passenger side of the car and slipped inside, but the Russian was not unaware of her progress, and when Saxa settled in the leather seat, Belesa produced a silver flask and murmured, “For the wait,” before handing it over to Saxa and returning to fiddling with her dials.

Saxa took the flask to be polite, but didn’t even consider drinking from it.

Apparently satisfied that the task she’d undertaken was complete, Belesa’s hands fell away from the dials on her dashboard, and she turned towards Saxa, smiling when she spotted the still capped flask in the blonde’s hands.

“You wound the very core of me,” Belesa breathed out, not sounding the least bit hurt by Saxa’s suspicion as she reached out and retrieved her flask from Saxa’s hands.

Saxa gave it up without a struggle, and then Belesa very slowly and visibly uncapped the flask and lifted it to her lips.

“A Russian would never taint vodka,” she declared after taking a long pull from the flask.

She then handed it back to Saxa.

Saxa looked at the glinting silver warily, toying with the idea that the contents of the flask were actually poisoned and that Belesa had taken the antidote before coming to meet her.  The speculation wasn’t impossible, it wasn’t even improbable, but it was useless – at least to Saxa at that moment in time.  She was stuck between a rock and a hard place … at the bottom of a pit of vipers … surrounded by a ring of fire.  The only thing the other bosses seemed to be able to agree on was that they didn’t want a woman in their club, and they had called a temporary truce with each other in order to bring a war on five fronts against her.  She needed to strategically eliminate a couple of them, and she needed to do it quickly before they realized that killing her would put an end to her operation much more resolutely than stealing her shipments and killing her men would.  In the past, when such situations had arisen, she’d always had Donar to discreetly handle things, but he had gone missing during his last job, which meant Saxa now needed Bella Donna to undertake the task.  There were other hitmen out there, that was true, one’s that were subtle, one’s that were intelligent, one’s that were creative, one’s that worked swiftly, but Bella Donna was the one who embodied all of those characteristics and more.  Bella Donna was the best, and Saxa needed the best.  She couldn’t afford for the assassinations of the other bosses to be tracked back to her, at least not for a while, and Bella Donna was her best shot at keeping her hands seemingly clean. 

The offering of the flask felt like a test to Saxa, and though it might not actually have been one, she had to treat it like it was and she had to pass it.  She needed Belesa to work for her and she was not going to accomplish that goal by showing weakness and backing down from the first challenge presented to her. 

So, Saxa lifted the flask. 

“Dosvedanya!” she toasted, flashing Belesa a quick grin, and then she tipped the flask back and drank.

Belesa smiled as Saxa swallowed and then handed the flask back to her, and took another quick sip from it herself before she screwed the cap back in place and put the flask aside.

“And now,” Belesa began, placing a warm hand on Saxa’s shoulder.  “We have trust.”

“Do we?” Saxa asked, arching a pale eyebrow at the Russian beauty beside her, knowing that it would take more than not being poisoned by someone to get her to trust them, no matter how generous their bosom and exquisite their cheekbones.

Belesa smiled and shrugged at that before murmuring, “The guise of it at least,” as she slowly let her fingers slide from where they had been resting on Saxa’s shoulder.  “Which is necessary before business like ours can be conducted, is it not?” she went on, her voice somehow deeper and richer than it had been since they’d met, devoid of any hint of playfulness now as her eyes held Saxa’s steadily.

Saxa was quiet for a moment as she studied Belesa, and in that moment she knew with absolute clarity that Bella Donna’s reputation did not begin to scratch the depths of the woman who lay beneath the alias.  In that moment, she knew that Belesa was worth all of the time she had put in, all of the money she’d had spent, and all of the favours she’d had to call in to arrange this meeting.  In that moment, Saxa knew that she would secure Belesa’s services; she knew that she would survive, and in time, she knew that with Belesa’s help she would crush everyone who had ever tried to bring her to her knees.

“Indeed,” Saxa breathed out as she leaned against the back of the convertible’s leather seat, making herself comfortable for the conversation that was to come.  “So, why don’t we begin?”

 

The End


End file.
